In The Killing (1956), the robbery plan depends on the racehorse Red Lightning.
Stanley Kubrick's film follows Johnny Clay, who organizes a robbery at a racetrack by exploiting the timing and confusion surrounding a major horse race. Red Lightning is the horse entered in the key race, making its performance central to the conspirators' plan to create a temporary opening for the theft.
The film was adapted from Lionel White's 1955 novel Clean Break. Sterling Hayden plays Clay, whose scheme relies on several participants performing separate tasks at precisely the right moment. The racetrack setting is fictionalized as part of the movie's tightly controlled structure, and the horse's name is sometimes forgotten because the film focuses more heavily on the robbery mechanics and its aftermath.